At a factory in Finland, the “farmers of the future” are making a new food protein using air and electricity, proving that protein can be produced without traditional agriculture. Livestock farming is one of the main contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, the primary cause of global warming. Cellular agriculture, where food or nutrients are grown from cell cultures, is increasingly seen as a green alternative to animal agriculture.
By feeding a microbe with carbon dioxide, hydrogen and some minerals, and powering the process with electricity from renewable sources, the company has managed to create a protein-rich powder that can be used as a milk and egg substitute. “We can source our main feedstock for the microbe from the air,” Solar Foods chief executive Pasi Vainikka says, as he gives a tour of the company’s facilities. “We have started the production of the world’s most sustainable protein.
” Founded by Vainikka and Juha-Pekka Pitkanen in 2017, Solar Foods launched the “world’s first factory growing food out of thin air” in April. “Much of the animal-like protein of today can actually be produced through cellular agriculture and we can let agricultural land re-wild and thereby build carbon stock,” Vainikka says, referring to the process whereby forests and soil absorb and store carbon. Producing one kilogram of the new protein, dubbed “solein”, emits 130 times less greenhouse gases than the same amount of protein from beef production in th.